The Opera Group: Bow Down

This week the Linbury Studio Theatre attracted an audience of the more minute variety with its dazzling production of The Firework-Maker’s Daughter. Based on Philip Pullman’s novel, the two-act opera transported its listeners into the realms of the Far East with papery costumes, Indonesian shadow puppetry and hand-crafted pyrotechnics.

Babur in London is the latest production from pioneering opera company The Opera Group, and it provided a thought-provoking evening. A collaborative venture between British-born composer Edward Rushton and New Delhi-based librettist Jeet Thayil, the new work has already toured Switzerland, and arrived in London following dates in Basingstoke, Oxford, Leeds and Birmingham.

The Lion's Face: The name comes from the clinicial description of the Alzheimer face with features settling into “leonine impassivity.” Librettist Glyn Maxwell spent five years researching this opera about dementia and this shines through in his portrayal of the life of an Alzheimer's patient in a nursing home.

Frederic Wake-Walker's realisation of the Hogarth-inspired opera is visually bracing and assuredly sung. 

For the 84th edition of its summer festival, the Teatro del Maggio Musicale Fiorentino presents its first ever production of Gounod's Roméo et Juliette.